


better than I ever even knew

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: We've not yet lost all our graces [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anorexia, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 13:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15631353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Sansa's made a new life for herself. She's happy, and she's far away from the life she left behind.Until something goes wrong.





	better than I ever even knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KyraAnnCoombes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyraAnnCoombes/gifts).



> I've tagged for it, but there's some discussion of anorexia in this - two characters suffer from it, one on-page and the other off, and while I hope I've handled it okay I'd be grateful if anyone with opinions could let me know.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to the other fic in the series, and a lot of the hints and backstory will make more sense having read the other. 
> 
> Enjoy!

They don’t stay in town often, but when they do, the dogs come with.

The neighbours are glad that they’re not frequent residents, Sansa knows - Mutt and Blossom are as smelly as they are noisy, and Sansa knows that she and Willas always take a few days to adjust to  _ having  _ neighbours whenever they come into town.

She isn’t sorry for it, but she is aware. She isn’t going to kennel her dogs and she isn’t going to sleep apart from Willas just to make her rarely-seen neighbours a little less frowny.

The house is on the same side of town as Willas’ parents’ house, and his mother’s father’s - half a world away from Sansa’s old house. She’s thankful for that, because she doesn’t think she could bear to drive past the house that  _ she  _ made into a home and that Joff broke.

She has to see Joff often enough as it is - she doesn’t need to see the house.

That makes it sound as though she’s wallowing over Joff all these years later, and she isn’t - she hasn’t wallowed over him since the miscarriage. This is regret, pure and painful, and the exhausting knowledge that had Joffrey been a better man, she might be living a very different life.

But she’s happy with the life she has now. She is happy with it, and grateful for it, and she wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

The front door bangs open and shut, and Mutt and Blossom proceed Willas down the hall to the kitchen - mercifully, it’s been dry and sunny for the past week, so there’s no great sprays of muck when they skid to a halt and shake themselves off. Willas is pink in the face and puffing a little when he follows them in, and Sansa hands him a glass of cordial without having to be asked. 

“Everyone had a nice time at the park, then?” she asks, not trying to hide her amusement. It took her a while to learn how to do that, to stop hiding her feelings, and Willas had encouraged her even more than her therapist had in that. “You look bushed, love.”

“I am that,” he admits, sitting down at the island and reaching down to rub at his bad knee. He finally had it replaced last year, but it hasn’t been as much a success as the doctors thought it would be, no matter how precisely he adheres to the exercise regimen to rebuild the muscle around it. Still, it’s better than it was, and any silver lining is something Sansa seizes with both hands. “Do you think we’d get away with not going tonight if we rang ahead and said I was sick?”

“I think my aunt would skewer you for lying,” Sansa says gravely, which makes him smile. “It won’t be so bad, Will - just family. Just the  _ Tully  _ side of the family.”

Willas finds the Stark side of her family painfully intimidating, and she can’t even laugh because the first time she attended a Hightower party as his plus one she nearly had a panic attack. It was like a Lannister party, only without the malice.

“Can I sit with Edmure?” he asks, poorly masking his absolute sincerity. She’d roll her eyes if it weren’t so funny, and as it is she makes sure to give his cheek a condescending pat.

“Lysa has a seating chart, as always,” Sansa promises, “and I asked her last week to put you with Edmure.”

“My hero,” Willas says, turning to kiss her palm - because of course she kept her hand to his cheek, knowing that he’d do this. 

Blossom makes her displeasure at being ignored known by knocking into Sansa’s thigh with her big fat head, and Mutt gives a single booming bark, the kind that means  _ sustenance, please.  _ They’re big dogs, far too big for if Sansa and Willas actually lived in town full time, but they cope well enough the odd time they’re subjected to the back garden and heavy fences. At home, they’ve the run of the gardens and hardly ever come inside except to sleep, and they obviously prefer it there.

Sansa can relate. 

“Go, shower,” she tells Willas, scratching her fingers through the fine cut of his beard for a moment before letting go. “I’ll feed the monsters and follow you up - are you okay on the stairs?”

“I have my crutch inside the door,” he assures her. “Go on, before they maul you.”

Mutt is sitting on his massive haunches and panting cheerfully with his tongue out, and Blossom is running eager loops in the space between the island and the utility room door. Sansa loves them both, and knows that they’re very clever dogs, but they’re both so adorably  _ stupid,  _ too.

“I’m terrified,” she calls after Willas. “Come on, you smelly old things, let’s get you fed, come on.”

 

* * *

Sansa hasn’t changed into fancy underwear by the time he emerges from the shower, so he feels confident in stepping close and plastering himself against her back.

“You’re lucky I hadn’t changed into my La Senza,” she chides him, pressing her hand over his where it rests on her smooth, soft belly. He nuzzles idly against her shoulder while she hmms and haws over what dress to wear tonight, and turns her just a little toward the pale green with the almond blossom print that she bought when they were in Belgium for the Flanders show, rather than the sky blue satin. He’s always loved her in green, and while she’s been phasing a little blue back into her wardrobe the past few months, she’s still not fully sure of it. Tully parties tend to be wild enough without her stressing herself over her dress.

“Predictable, I know,” he says, “but I do prefer the green.”

“You’re so transparent,” she tells him, but he knows she’s smiling. He nips at her ear all the same, which makes her laugh, before stepping away to start getting dressed.

Or, he would have started getting dressed, had Sansa not hooked her fingers under his towel and given it a good sharp tug, leaving him bollock naked in the middle of their bedroom, with the curtains open.

“Oh  _ dear,” _ Sansa sighs, and goodness but her bra is very, very see-through. “How clumsy of me.”

“Clumsy,” he agrees, catching her hands and pulling her in close. “Terrible, really. Whatever will we do with ourselves now, hmm?”

She kisses him, and he pulls her even closer. She smells a little bit of dog, but mostly of her minty conditioner and the cool, sharp perfume she wears, and her skin is warm and soft under his hands.

She bites down hard on his lip, and shoves him smartly toward the chair at her dressing table.

“But the bed-”

“Is covered in my expensive clothes,” she warns him. “I’ll turn you into a dress if you ruin that blue satin, don’t think I won’t.”

She settles on top of him as soon as he’s sitting down, in that see-through bra and those see-through knickers, and makes a pleased little sound once she’s firmly in place against his rapidly rising interest.

She kisses him again. Maybe he kisses her. It doesn’t much matter, since the important thing just now is getting her bra off, and his brain is already so much mush that he can hardly manage the clasp. He does, heroically, and she tosses her bra aside with a laugh that he catches on the tip of his tongue before lowering his head to more pressing business.

She digs her fingers into his hair when he presses the flat of his tongue over her nipple, and curses low and enthusiastic when he catches it between his teeth.

“I still have to get ready,” she reminds him breathlessly. “So no stalling, Tyrell.”

She’s grinding down against him by now, slow and easy, and if he had a little more presence of mind he might tease that she’s not exactly rushing in headfirst.

“I could get on my knees, if that’d speed you along,” she murmurs, nosing against his hair, and he simply has to kiss her for that. She doesn’t like giving head, and he never asks for it, so she must be  _ really  _ antsy to even suggest it.  _ He’s  _ the one who likes getting his face wet, but he can’t really do that now because he doesn’t trust her dressing table to hold up when she gets going.

He also doesn’t trust the neighbours not to complain to the residents association if Sansa gets noisy. It wouldn’t be the first time, and the Florents are so  _ dour. _

She’s already warm under his fingers when he presses against the lace of her knickers, and she hums permission when he hesitates before tugging the lace aside to press against her skin. So very, very warm, but not very wet at all.

“What shall we do about this,” she says, guiding his mouth back to her tight nipples, her lovely high breasts, the pale stretch of her breastbone. “You’ve your work cut out, sir, I really think-”

Whatever she’s thinking dies a death when he pauses long enough to lick the pad of his thumb before rolling it over her clit, and then she gives a stunned little laugh.

“That’s cheating,” she says. “You can’t do  _ that  _ while I’m teasing you.”

“Can too,” he grumbles, grinning against her skin while she begins to rock again, very gently. She’s lovely like this, easy and soft and eager, smiling as she leans in to kiss him again. He loves to see her smile, because she did so little of it when he first knew her and he’s never known someone so wholly made for happiness.

He’s glad to give her some small measure of it. Anything that’s his to give is hers.

 

* * *

Dinner parties at Lysa’s are always absolutely wild, if only because she was a terrible cook and the success of the party depended entirely on whether or not she admitted defeat and ordered in. 

Tonight is a good night on that front.

It’s a bad night on a couple of other fronts, though. Robb’s Jeyne and Edmure’s Roslin are already spitting tacks across the vol au vents, Rickon’s new girlfriend Dara has had to duck out twice to either have a smoke or be sick, and Sansa’s been put sitting beside Tommen.

Lysa obviously did not do the seating plan herself, because she would  _ never  _ have allowed this to happen. Alayne, snug between Mum and Robb, is pointedly ignoring Sansa’s venomous fury, reminding Sansa just why she’s never been close to her cousin - Alayne is much too much her father’s daughter.

“I’m sorry, Sansa,” Tommen says, pouring a glass of ice water for her. “I can’t imagine you wanted to sit anywhere near me, but feel free to ignore me for the evening.”

Once, Sansa loved Tommen. He’s impossibly sweet and kind, gentle in a way utterly alien to every other Lannister or Baratheon she knows except  _ maybe _ Shireen, but he’s also the spitting image of Joff. He usen’t be, he used to be round cheeked and plump, but he’s gotten into running in a big way recently and the planes and angles of his face are far too familiar for Sansa’s tastes.

Willas is sitting across and down three, and he keeps shooting her worried little glances. Arya is sitting on Mum’s other side, and when Mum stands up to help Lysa carry something in, Arya leans over and seizes Alayne by the arm to have a firm word.

“Can’t any of you control your sister, Sansa?” grumbles Harry - Alayne’s husband, but Robin’s cousin on his father’s side, which had been odd when it first came out - from Tommen’s other side. “Alayne has done nothing to deserve Arya’s temper.”

Tommen turns to face Harry, pointing to himself, and even immovable Harry is moved by that.

“Oh, buggery,” he says. “Sorry, San, I’ll have a word with Alayne after - sorry, Tom, I always think of you as Robin’s husband, not as the demon’s brother.”

Tommen shrugs, and Sansa waves away Harry’s apology - she’s known Harry since they were kids, set up her first business with him as one of her partners, and she knows he meant no harm. Margaery told Sansa that Harry told her that his and Alayne’s relationship has been iffy the past few months, though, so maybe it’s not so surprising that he’s not defending her honour beyond a paltry first effort.

Tommen also doesn’t eat a damned thing the whole night, but Sansa doesn’t draw attention to it. He’s sneaking every morsel he can to Lysa’s cats, who flock to him whenever he crosses the threshold, and the rest just gets diced up and moved around his plate to make it look as if he’s eaten something.

Robin is watching from his place beside Dad, and looks grim. Sansa thinks she’d best speak to him afterwards, and catches his eye to signal as much. 

Jon - Lysa’s Jon - is on Sansa’s other side, and he’s as enthusiastic a conversationalist as ever. He’s quiet by nature, given more to a cool reserve than idle chat, and Sansa doesn’t mind him as a dining partner when she isn’t penned in on the other side by a starving half-Lannister. Tonight, she’d much rather have Bran, or Meera, or literally anyone except Tommen and Jon.

Mostly she’d prefer to be on the corner with Willas and Edmure, but Lysa point-blank refuses to sit couples together, and Alayne has apparently taken that rule as cast iron, the bitch.

Sansa escapes for a few minutes when Lysa asks for help with desert, and regrets her offer of assistance the moment Mum lets the kitchen door click shut behind her.

“So,” Lysa says, bangles clacking as she folds her arms and leans forward with a gleeful sort of smile that looks awfully like Arya on a hockey pitch. “Any particular reason you ducked the prawns, Sansa?”

Mum’s smiling, her hands clasped in front of her belly, but she looks… Hopeful.

“You can’t say a word,” Sansa warns them, clapping her hand over Lysa’s mouth before her aunt can shriek, as she sometimes does. “Willas doesn’t know for sure yet, Lysa, so you have to keep schtum, promise me.”

“How far along as you?” Mum asks, wrapping her arm around Sansa’s waist and smiling very gently. “Are you waiting until you’re past the three month mark?”

“I’m actually nearly fifteen weeks,” she admits sheepishly. “But after- before, I wanted to keep it secret. It’s silly, I know that, I know Willas isn’t-”

“It’s not the least bit silly,” Lysa says fiercely, wrapping her arm around Sansa from the other side. “But you’re starting to show, poppet, so you might want to tell your lovely husband before he realises mid-fuck-”

_ “Lysa!” _

* * *

 

 

Sansa’s deep in conversation with Robin when Ned approaches Willas, whiskey in hand, and sits down.

Edmure takes the hint and fucks off, sequestering himself in the corner with Bran and Meera and Roslin, all of whom Willas likes enormously when they aren’t obviously whispering about him.

“I think it’s a little late for a serious talk about how I treat your daughter, Ned,” Willas says, sipping at his water to hide his smile. Everyone talks about Ned as if he’s some sort of terrifying iceman, but Willas has always found him perfectly agreeable, if a little shy. Kind of like Sansa, in a way. “What can I do for you?”

“Sansa didn’t eat her shellfish,” Ned says, quiet even for him. “Any comment on that?”

“She didn’t have the ice-cream either,” Willas agrees, barely keeping to his seat. He’s been wanting to talk about this for  _ weeks,  _ but he’s been keeping quiet about it until Sansa comes to him - given everything she’s gone through, it seems the only fair way to go about it. “And she  _ loves  _ Robin’s raspberry ripple.”

No shellfish, no homemade ice-cream, no sushi in months - and the bump, of course, but it’s rude to comment on a lady’s figure. Willas has been as patient as he knows how since he put all the clues together, but if even Sansa’s father has guessed, well, it can’t be bad to share his hopes with Ned, can it?

“You’ll make wonderful parents,” Ned says, smiling wide enough that it’s detectable even under his beard - a true miracle, even more than Arya going the whole meal without throttling Alayne. “Whenever she’s ready to tell you, be careful of her - she’s strong, but this is going to be hard for her.”

 

* * *

Sansa tells him that night. She was going to talk to him about Tommen - Robin’s going out of his mind, because apparently it isn’t the running that’s slimmed Tom down so far - but instead they laugh and cry and Willas holds her as if she’s very precious and very fragile until they fall asleep.

 

* * *

_ “I don’t mean to alarm you,”  _ Garlan says down the phone at half past two on a Thursday morning,  _ “but I think Sansa might need to get her aunt down to the hospital, if she can.” _

“What’s going on?” Willas asks, hunting for the lightswitch on the wall over the bed, casting about for Sansa - in the loo, the light is on in the en suite. “Why in the world-”

_ “It’s Tom Baratheon,”  _ Garlan says.  _ “He’s been rushed in - he’s having a heart attack.” _

Garlan’s a damn good doctor, but his bedside manner could do with some  _ serious _ work.

Sansa emerges from the en suite, and she’s already dressed and she’s already on the phone. She throws trousers and a jumper at him before waving her keys - she’ll lock up and put the dogs out, and she’ll bring the car around while he’s getting dressed. He rushes into his clothes as best he can, cursing his bad knee all the while, and manages to get a coat on by the time he’s at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Garlan rang you?” she asks while he’s settling in with his seatbelt. “Robin rang me in hysterics, so I rang Lysa and Jon - we’ll meet them at the hospital.”

“Is there anyone else we should ring?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. 

Her face is pinched, and he presses his hand over hers on the gearstick for a moment.

“I’ll drive from the motorway in,” he says, “and you can ring Cersei and the rest. How’s that?”

 

* * *

Sansa’s still on the phone to Myrcella when they walk into the hospital, so Willas does all the necessary asking around - are they family? In-laws, oh, well then, they can wait in the waiting room near A and E, will that do?

Jon and Lysa are in the waiting room when they get there, and Cersei follows them in not ten minutes after. Lysa and Cersei talk at one another very seriously, and Jon sits with his arms folded over his chest and says nothing at all.

Sansa hangs up on Myrcella - ten minutes out, thanks to Walda’s bonkers driving - and sits down right beside Jon and puts her hand on his knee. He sniffs mightily, and eases just a little.

Sansa’s half asleep under Willas’ arm, with Lysa’s coat thrown over her, when the door opens again. 

Tom isn’t as much like Joff as she thought. Joff’s better looking, and harder, and meaner in some indefinable way. She curls closer under Willas’ arm when Joff’s gaze lands on her, but he looks away as if offended before she has to say hello.

There’s no new news of Tom by the time Myrcella arrives, and Sansa’s fast asleep when the doctor comes in and asks for Cersei.

 

* * *

“He’s going to be alright,” Myrcella says, mostly to herself. “He’s  _ Tommen,  _ of  _ course  _ he’s going to be alright.”

Joffrey, sitting beside her, gives a jerky nod but says nothing. He’s looking as far from Sansa as he can, and Willas is grateful for it.

Margaery once told him that Myrcella’s partner went by Fat Walda at school, and less because of bullies than because of her own cheerful acceptance of being portly. They’re a gorgeous couple, and Willas wonders if Joff ever feels as much like a fool as he is, looking at his brother and sister being so happy and knowing that he threw away his chance with Sansa.

“It can’t be a heart attack,” Myrcella says. “He’s healthy as a horse, isn’t he? All those salads and all that running, he’s-”

“Anorexic,” Cersei says, looking gaunter than she did five minutes ago. “He’s  _ malnourished.  _ If they can’t get through to him, he’ll be  _ dead.” _

Everyone goes very still, and Myrcella tucks herself against her Wanda. 

“If it helps,” Willas says tentatively, “I can put you in touch with a very good clinic. I know from, ah, bitter experience just how good they are.”

Margaery’s demons are held as firmly as bay as possible by a regular therapy routine and a very dedicated personal trainer and dietician - so dedicated that Quentyn went so far as to ask her to marry him, last spring - who helps her keep as strong and healthy as possible. Tom obviously won’t have such a personal touch, but the clinic did the bulk of the work needed to get Marg to a point where therapy would do her any good, and Willas can’t praise them enough.

“I’d be grateful,” Cersei says, softening her echoing step just a little when she comes close to hand him her phone. “If you have their number?”

He wakes Sansa while he’s digging his phone out of his pocket, and she seems just about ready to nod off again until she remembers where they are, and why.

“Has there been news?” she asks, bleary eyed. “Is Tom okay?”

“We’ll get him the help he needs,” Justice Arryn says - Willas has had dinner in Jon Arryn’s house dozens of times now, but he still can’t call him by name - with a weary shake of his head. “You should head home, Sansa, in your condition.”

“I’ll stay a little while longer,” she says firmly. “Robin rang me, and I haven’t even seen him yet - does anyone need anything? I need to straighten up.”

Everyone demures, but Willas rises with her. His knee is starting to get sore, and a walk to the coffee machine and back will do him good.

Joff stands up too.

“I’ll help,” he says gruffly, and stomps out ahead of them. What fun.

 

* * *

Sansa holds onto Willas’ hand as tight as she can, terrified that Joff is going to turn around and shove her down the nearest stairs. 

It isn’t rational, it isn’t a practical fear, but it’s real, and she can feel the cold sweat on the back of her neck and how clammy her palm is against Willas’. He kisses her cheek, a silent encouragement, and they catch Joff up at the coffee machine without incident.

“I hadn’t heard the good news,” Joffrey says, not meeting her eye - he hasn’t, since the day she walked out on him. “Congratulations.”

Sansa’s twenty-seven weeks now, and her belly seems to get bigger by the day. Joff reaches out a hand toward her bump, and she turns away from him without conscious thought.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “fuck, I’m sorry, I’ll just-”

He tears away with four coffees and half the brown sugar in the dispenser in his hands, leaving Sansa with Willas curled defensively around her back.

“I wish it got easier,” she says, a little pathetic. “But all I could see was-”

“You don’t have to talk about it, love,” Willas says softly, kissing her hair now. “But I’m here if you want to.”

She reaches back over her shoulder to touch his cheek, and they linger there for a moment, quiet in the middle of all the mess.

“Come on, then,” she says. “Lysa might’ve said no, but she’ll need a cuppa. Let’s get what we need.”


End file.
